Interpersonal or evaluative meaning has been described in systemic functional linguistics with the help of appraisal theory (Martin & White 2005), which distinguishes between different types of evaluation. One sub-system of APPRAISAL is ATTITUDE, which is further divided into APPRECIATION, JUDGEMENT and AFFECT. This paper uses corpus-linguistic evidence to investigate how far linguistic patterns support this classification, and whether they can be used as a ‘diagnostic’ for distinguishing types of ATTITUDE (as has been proposed in appraisal theory). It argues that two different aspects of APPRAISAL need to be considered: the kinds of attitudinal lexis (in terms of evaluative standards which are inscribed in this lexis) and the kinds of attitudinal targets or types of attitudinal assessment, and that this distinction has not been sufficiently considered in appraisal theory so far. A preliminary classification of attitudinal lexis is also suggested, and a new sub-category of ATTITUDE proposed (COVERT AFFECT).

This study explores the conceptual semantics of numbers and counting, using the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis (Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard & Wierzbicka (eds.) 2002). It first argues that the concept of a number in one of its senses (number1, roughly, “number word”) and the meanings of low number words, such as one, two, and three, can be explicated directly in terms of semantic primes, without reference to any counting procedures or practices. It then argues, however, that the larger numbers, and the productivity of the number sequence, depend on the concept and practice of counting, in the intransitive sense of the verb. Both the intransitive and transitive senses of counting are explicated, and the semantic relationship between them is clarified. Finally, the study moves to the semantics of abstract numbers (number2), roughly, numbers as represented by numerals, e.g. 5, 15, 27, 36, as opposed to number words. Though some reference is made to cross-linguistic data and cultural variation, the treatment is focused primarily on English.

In Berry’s (1981) classic work on exchange structure, it was argued that knowledge exchanges consist of some conversational participant who already knows the information and some conversational participant to whom the information is imparted. The former participant is commonly termed the primary knower, whereas the latter is termed the secondary knower. What is missing in Berry’s model (and work that has extended Berry’s model), however, is (1) an explanation of how rights and access to knowledge can be claimed or resisted on a turn-by-turn and move-by-move basis, and (2) a more elaborated conception of knowledge that goes beyond a sender/receiver model of information. Drawing from a corpus of spoken conversation from diverse sources, I extend Berry’s model by showing how a participant’s ‘knower status’ is often negotiated within an exchange. As an interpersonal resource, knowledge can be asserted, challenged, resisted, accepted, expanded, upgraded, downgraded, etc. Furthermore, I argue that ‘knowledge’ should be given a social/practical epistemological interpretation; from this perspective, knowledge is associated with a speaker’s degree of access to information and with a speaker’s rights and obligations to know.